World AIDS campaign

There is so much going on just now in the run up to World AIDS day. I just want draw your attention to two things. The first is a Lancet editorial out today in response to the revised UN figures on HIV which have cause a bit of an international stir to put it mildly. I have copied the editorial below but you can also access it on the Lancet website The second is an Oxfam briefing paper (and just to be up front about things- I used to work for Oxfam) on the pharmaceutical industry published this week.  (Activities by the pharmaceutical industry are widely believed to limit access to essential medicines including second line treatment for HIV/AIDS) The report, ‘Investing for Life’, looks at the world’s top 12 pharmaceutical companies (Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis and Wyeth) including their drug pricing policies, their record in developing medicines relevant to poorer countries and their stance on protecting intellectual property rights. I have copied below the main findings of the report and if you want a copy for yourself, please email gginn@oxfam.org.uk - Thanks! Rhona (more…)

It’s not every day that you can say that you got to hear Kofi Annan, former General Secretary of the UN, but I am lucky enough to be able to say that today! I attended the launch of the Humanitarian Response Index which is a tool for improving humanitarian response by measuring the behaviour of 23 OECD donors against the commitments they made. The tool measures 57 indicators and Sweden comes out tops. I will be writing more about this later but I am still a bit starry-eyed about Kofi Annan answering my question (about what happens next) so I just wanted to tell you a bit about it now!

And in our new peer-reviewed Articles published this week, Sarah Walpole interviews another of my heroes-Hugh Montgomary, probably one of the most interesting people I have ever met. In addition to working full time as a Consultant in Intensive Care and the many other things he does, he spends at least 4o hours a week on project genie- an initiative to make children more aware of climate change. Sarah also teams up with Sophie North to discuss young people’s involvment in activism and Johnny Boylan discusses equality and diversity awareness training for in medical training.

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Sophie North and Sarah Walpole tell us more about CIVICUS

Half of the world’s population are under the age of 25. (1) It is therefore crucial that we, as young people, have our perspectives, ideas and skills recognised. We must be involved in local and global decision making.

This year, the annual CIVICUS assembly - a gathering of civil society organisations from around the world - made significant efforts to include young people in their discussions. For the first time, a quota of 150 places was set for people under the age of 25, and at this meeting the youngest ever board member, aged 23, was elected. (more…)

Me again. My goodness! You lot have been busy! And I am very impressed at everything you have planned for World AIDS day (1st Dec).  See the message below from Pete Witzler from Physicians for Human Rights but also see what People & Planet are doing, and Medsin- 6000 flowers lined up as part of the demonstration in Parliament Square, London tomorrow-awesome! Please let me know what you are planning for World’ AIDS day, and then write about it for us! cheers Rhona

Physicians for Human Rights is taking another step into Web 2.0 with the launch of our video postcard project. For World AIDS Day, we are collecting video postcards from students and health professionals in the US and throughout the world who are concerned about HIV/AIDS and human rights. You can add your voice to this growing community with a strong personal message telling our policy makers that we must fight for the fundamental right to health. Please join us in this exciting, new way to take action. (more…)

 Hi there. Rhona here. Sorry for ther lengthy delay between blog entries. I was carted off to hospital at the weekend which I was not quite expecting and am just catching up with everything now. So will leave it to Lizzie Moore, a medical student from Sheffield to tell you about a stimulating lecture by Professor David Molyneux who gave the presidential address at The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene last week. More later. Rhona

Last week, Professor David Molyneux made a fascinating and inspiring address as President of Royal Society of Tropical Medicine. The theme was the ‘other diseases’ in MDG 6, and how combating these is a route to poverty reduction. There is a growing body of evidence that goals such as ‘eradicate extreme poverty and hunger’ will not be met until the problems faced by ‘the bottom billion’ are solved.

The talk started with an awesome introduction to Professor Molyneux’s numerous national and international positions, awards and achievements in research. Professor Molyneux then took us on an excellent journey through the history, politics, epidemiology, economics and anthropology of Neglected Diseases. We saw a fabulous depiction of aliens looking upon earth and seeing the world prioritising only the afflictions of HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB, blind to the Neglected Diseases affecting the poorest and most vulnerable in developing countries, powerless in political voice. (more…)

 Hi there. Just a quick scribble today as I am just back from giving a talk for Americans for Informed Democracy (AID) on globalisation and justice. As you can imagine, I had quite a lot to say! I am ashamed to say though that I hadn’t heard of AID before they invited me to speak. But now I know more about them, I think that they are a great organisation and I am very impressed with them. Here is a bit of blurb about them from their website: “Americans for Informed Democracy (AID) is a non-partisan organization that brings the world home through programming on more than 1,000 U.S. university campuses and in more than 10 countries. AID fulfills its mission by coordinating town hall meetings on America’s role in the world, hosting leadership retreats, and publishing opinion pieces and reports on issues of global importance. Through these efforts, AID seeks to build a new generation of globally conscious leaders who can shape an American foreign policy appropriate for our increasingly interdependent world. “ If what you have heard so far appeals to you, check out their website for some more information about them.

Tomorrow is the Alma Mata Conference in London on the commercialisation of health and so I (or some of the students who will be there) will update you on that next week.

Finally, as it is very fitting for the topic that I was speaking about today, I am going to shamelessly plug the World Report on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in this week’s Lancet. I have copied it for you below but you can also catch it in this week’s Lancet Digest. Have a good weekend Rhona! (more…)

Hi there. Rhona here today. This week has been a bit manic and I have not had a chance to tell you about the Shared Planet conference I was speaking at last Saturday. Organised by People & Planet - a UK Students campaigning organisation on world poverty, human rights and the environment, 100s of students gathered in Sheffield, UK,  to learn more about these issues and get energised and enthusiastic about campaigning. It was all very encouraging. People & Planet have some great campaigns going just now around trade justice, HIV/AIDS, and the environment, which you may want to check out.

Now to new content on the site: Anna Shore discusses her elective in Nepal where she worked at a leprosy hospital and we have a letter to a new medical student from Daniel Sokol, a lecturer in medical ethics and law. The reviewers and I thought this was definitely worth publishing as it is a useful reminder to to remember what’s important even if you are not a “new” medical student. His message is basically this: “Do not yield to this temptation, however strong, but take the ethical issues in medicine as seriously as you do the technical ones. This doesn’t mean devouring textbooks on medical ethics. It means simply seeing ethics as integral to the proper care of your patients. Just as you want to increase your understanding of the factual aspects of medicine, so should you want to deepen your moral understanding. Your ability to perceive moral issues, to reason through ethical problems in search of a solution, and to act upon your decision is inextricably linked to your future success as a doctor. ” Spot on! Rhona

Hi, it’s Sarah again as Rhona is busily working on the other Lancet… I wanted to tell you a bit about a talk I heard yesterday about the work of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, a fantastic campaign which has been spearheaded by students in the United States. UAEM has two main pillars of activity.

• “to determine how universities can help ensure that biomedical end products, such as drugs, are made more accessible in poor countries and
• to increase the amount of research conducted on neglected diseases, or those diseases predominantly affecting people who are too poor to constitute a market attractive to private-sector R&D investment.”

Universities play a key role in global-health research, with a recent US Senate report finding that in the US 15 of the 21 drugs with the most therapeutic impact were derived from federally funded research at academic centres. They are also well-placed to influence the terms of drug licensing, since often their contribution is through fundamental research which occurs early on in the process of drug development. (more…)

Hi, I’m Sarah Legrand, a student helping Rhona out with The Lancet Student. One of my interests is the relationship between social status and health, and in today’s blog I wanted to tell you about a lecture I went to the other day, given by epidemiologist and social scientist Professor Richard Wilkinson, who has spent twenty years studying the relationship between income inequality and health.

At the start of his talk, Professor Wilkinson showed a famous graph called the “Millennium Preston Curve” which plots life expectancy in 2000 against adjusted figures for GDP per capita. This shows a clear inflection point around a GDP/capita of $5-10,000. Before this point, there is a very strong positive correlation between GDP and life expectancy. After it, the relationship is much less clear, with some countries such as the USA and Singapore having relatively low levels of life expectancy, despite high GDP. The opposite is true for Sweden and Japan. (more…)

Cyclone Sidr heading towards Bangladesh

 Over the weekend we saw horrifying pictures of cyclone Sidr which has devastated southern Bangladesh. Many charities have set up an appeal to help Sidr survivors (just do a google search for ‘Bangladesh cyclone appeal’ to see them all- I don’t want to show any favouritism but just mentioning a few) which you may want to donate to. Our correspondent from Bangladesh, Mohammad Rakibul Hasan (Rakib) has just sent me his account over the last few days which I have posted below. I assured him that we were all thinking about him and his fellow Bangladeshis. Rhona

Nov 15, 2007. 11 pm
The moment I am writing, rain with gusty winds is sweeping all over Bangladesh including Dhaka, the capital, under the influence of a very severe tropical cyclone Sidr. And in the southern part of Bangladesh, the velocity of the stormy wind is as high as 220-240 km/h. A few hours back, Sidr made its landfall near the river Baleshwar at Barisal-Khulna coastline. That time Mongla Port was showing great danger signal-10, under which also came adjoining 11 districts. Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar maritime ports and adjoining six districts were under great danger signal-9. Exact loss of lives and property could not be estimated immediately. So far, 1 person was reported to die in Shatkhira. In Cox’s Bazar, around 300 fishing trawlers with around 1,000 fishermen are missing. (1,2) (more…)